StarCraft II

[Malakili]

Does anyone have ANY idea how to play PvZ?  I feeel totally lost against Zerg in the early game.  When I win I feel like its just because I'm straight up better than my opponent, and most often time I end up just losing.  Here is basically what happens

1) I go for a normal build, and get zergling runby into my probes, basically losing the game.  Maybe not outright, but i'm so far behind I may as well gg.

2) I got for a early zealot build to prevent zergling pressure, but have shit all to deny scouting from overlords, and he just makes roaches and beats me.

3) If I go for an normal build and make it to the mid game, I have a hard time expanding, and don't really have the gas I need to make enough units to deal with zerg mid game units like hydras or mutas.


I just feel like I need some sort of stable opening that lets me feel secure while not basically dooming me to one basing and getting out macroed.  Part of the problem is I feel like I barely EVER seen protoss replays anywhere.  Everything is Terran v. Zerg or Terran v Terran lately and then when I go to play my actual games its like I almost forget what I'm doing, which doesn't help.  PvP and PvT I feel pretty ok, but PvZ I just have the hardest time keeping any sort of steady game play up.

[bhodi]

You need to wall off and work on your simcity. There is no point where zerg should get speedlings into your minerals. In fact, if you're looking for a trick, once you get warpgates, just wall off your main and leave a single probe outside for your expansion and never warp your units inside.

Practice building your pylon/gate/cybercore to create a one-unit exit space above your ramp and sticking zealot in there. Practice forcefielding ramps.

[Malakili]

You need to wall off and work on your simcity. There is no point where zerg should get speedlings into your minerals. In fact, if you're looking for a trick, once you get warpgates, just wall off your main and leave a single probe outside for your expansion and never warp your units inside.

Practice building your pylon/gate/cybercore to create a one-unit exit space above your ramp and sticking zealot in there. Practice forcefielding ramps.

I'm fine on all that really.  But you've got to expand eventually, and I just have the toughest time defending my expansion and my main if I do expand, so I end up doing these one base plays that leave me kind of fucked if I don't win.  Like I said, I need stable builds that allow me to prevent pressure, sail into the mid game, and protect myself from harass, and I almost always fail at ONE of those things.

[bhodi]

You're basically looking at 3 gate robo to colossus for ground or mixing in some high templar if they go air. Basically, you're going to have to own the map and be more aggressive; remember that to stay even with you economically, the zerg has to have one more base than you do - keep them contained and you win the game. Abuse the reinforcement pylon.

There are always dirty tricks - dark templar, a small drop in their main to get them to pull their units back and then forcefielding their ramp and killing their expansion, stuff like that.

[Malakili]

Sigh.  I'm so sick of fucking all in one base play from every god damn mother fucker on the ladder.  Maybe I should just start playing to cheese lots of wins instead of playing for the mid game because it doesn't seem like anyone else gives a shit about anything but their fucking record no matter if they actually get any better at the game by imprioving their timing and macro skills.  God fucking damn it I'm so pissed right now.

[jakonovski]

Hell, I've been surrendering multiple times today when the opponent started turtling. I'm trying to be more and more aggressive in order to not let them do that. God I can't stand turtling.

[Malakili]

Hell, I've been surrendering multiple times today when the opponent started turtling. I'm trying to be more and more aggressive in order to not let them do that. God I can't stand turtling.

Turtling is easy to beat, I don't mind that at all to be honest.  I can also practice my timings and transitions and expands against a turtler, which is nice.  Its the people that have no intention to expand, don't build many worksrs and just pump out as many units as they can and have everything riding on either early early pressure or on a timing push around 5-8 minute mark that fuel my rage.  Yeah, I need to get better at beating it, and i'm not TERRIBLE at beating it, but when you specifically want to practice a bunch of stuff like I usually do and instead I just find myself scrambling to deal with early all in pressure, it makes me lose my mind. 

[K9]

Sentry micro? It's fiddly, but scarily effective against zerg.

[slog]

I have won 13 out of my last 14 matches, and I haven't seen another Bronze player as an opponent in 10 matches.  My last match i just beat a gold ranked player.

Still #1 in my Bronze league and still Bronze

[Rasix]

I have won 13 out of my last 14 matches, and I haven't seen another Bronze player as an opponent in 10 matches.  My last match i just beat a gold ranked player.

Still #1 in my Bronze league and still Bronze

Took a while for me to get placed higher.   You probably missed your last window to get promoted.  Have fun in gold (or plat), wish I was there.  Plat kind of killed my will to play.

[Margalis]

How can you tell what league your opponent is in?

[jakonovski]

You can view his profile in the post game stats screen.

[Wolf]

Does anyone have ANY idea how to play PvZ?  I feeel totally lost against Zerg in the early game.  When I win I feel like its just because I'm straight up better than my opponent, and most often time I end up just losing.  Here is basically what happens

1) I go for a normal build, and get zergling runby into my probes, basically losing the game.  Maybe not outright, but i'm so far behind I may as well gg.

2) I got for a early zealot build to prevent zergling pressure, but have shit all to deny scouting from overlords, and he just makes roaches and beats me.

3) If I go for an normal build and make it to the mid game, I have a hard time expanding, and don't really have the gas I need to make enough units to deal with zerg mid game units like hydras or mutas.


I just feel like I need some sort of stable opening that lets me feel secure while not basically dooming me to one basing and getting out macroed.  Part of the problem is I feel like I barely EVER seen protoss replays anywhere.  Everything is Terran v. Zerg or Terran v Terran lately and then when I go to play my actual games its like I almost forget what I'm doing, which doesn't help.  PvP and PvT I feel pretty ok, but PvZ I just have the hardest time keeping any sort of steady game play up.

5-6 WG all in off of one base, no transition needed. Everyone does it in diamond apparently and I've started to tailor my build against it especially. Still Platinum, still getting matched against diamond only. Wonder when it'll bump me up. Played like shit yesterday and lost a bunch of games.

Decided to stop the first time I ran into 5 rax reaper. I need to find someone to pratice against this, I guess it'll be the new thing everyone does :(

[jakonovski]

Reapers are sooooo countered by siege tanks. It was one of the few bright spots last night.

[Fordel]

Almost everything that walks on the ground is countered by siege tanks 

[Abagadro]

I love hearing that "phoom" sound when a reaper trying to backdoor my base runs into a defensive siege sitting there.

This game is so streaky. I will go 5 games regularly with all wins or all losses

[Paelos]

I'm going to a Dr. appointment tomorrow. I have a feeling my blood pressure is going to be up entirely due to this game's multiplayer. 

[Abagadro]

I said an exasperated "fuck" after being stomped for the third time in a row without noticing my 6 year old was standing behind me watching me play.  I know that is going to come back to haunt me.

[Tairnyn]

Been avoiding 1v1 play and sticking with friends who are better than me for team play because I feel like I'm just not that good. After losing my first 2 1v1 placement matches in epic fashion it's tough to get motivated to keep trying. The computer is so predictable I don't ever feel like I'm getting better practicing on it. Starting to think I need to learn to be more aggressive.

[slog]

Any tips for learning Zerg?  After playing nothing but Terran I gave zerging a try, but I'm just not getting how it works.

[Malakili]

Any tips for learning Zerg?  After playing nothing but Terran I gave zerging a try, but I'm just not getting how it works.

Get a queen as soon as your pool finished and make sure to inject larvae on every cooldown.  Early expanding is good a lot of the time, especialy on 4 player maps.

Another common opener is to get your gas right before your pool, and then you'll have 100 gas as soon as the pool finishes, which allows you to get speedlings on the field early. 

Also, your queens can make creep tumors, do this and then start spreading the creep all over the map.  Your units move faster on creep, and speed is huge in Starcraft 2 due to the way AI forms concaves, the faster army wins assuming otherwise equal conditions.

As Zerg you basically want to keep as much map control as possible, have more expansions than you opponents (all with queens spawning more larvae, or you'l fall behind in macro).  Zerg can also do some sweet timing pushes because you can save some larvae and resources for when a tech building finishes and then pump out a bunch of your new unit immediately.

[Strazos]

Any tips for countering early reaper rushes? Buddy and I had that happen once...so we started using early reaper harass (I NEVER used reapers) and found that it cripples people pretty well while we build up behind them. Can't wall off, and when they send only 3 or so, they're powerful enough to kill the few marines you can pump out in the same amount of time.

Also, that APM video seems like somewhat BS; a LOT of their actions were simply hitting the group bindings constantly, checking units.

[Rasix]

Marauders would work pretty well, I imagine. Especially with concussive shells. Hellions probably wouldn't do terrible either.

Just make sure you're building close to your base.  A wall-off will actually be a hindrance early on.

Also, that APM video seems like somewhat BS; a LOT of their actions were simply hitting the group bindings constantly, checking units.

And this is why you fail..

[Margalis]

Any tips for learning Zerg?  After playing nothing but Terran I gave zerging a try, but I'm just not getting how it works.

What I've been doing recently is playing against a very easy AI and seeing how fast I can get to a 200/200 supply army. It helps teach you how to keep up with larva spit as well as how to not get supply blocked. The thing about Zerg is that with each larva you can build either a drone or a fighter, so having more larva is SUPER important.

You want to build as many drones as possible, which means you need good scouting info because early in the game you may not have much of a standing army. But I can't stress enough that larva spit is so so important. The more you miss it the more you have to choose between workers and army instead of having both. When you are missing the timing on spits a lot you just do not have enough larva and fall hopelessly behind.

Spreading creep is also very important, as is keeping your eye on possible enemy expos. You might think Zerg are about rushing but really Zerg is all map control, keep a ling or an overlord at any possible expo location and keep tabs on what your opponent is building, then starve them out.

[Starry12]

Is buying the collector's edition better? Starcraft 2 collectors edition

[K9]

In-game-wise the only difference is a few CE-only portraits and decals, and a different model for the Thor.

[jakonovski]

The art book is the only thing worth money in there. I still feel a bit like an idiot for shelling out, but the Diablo marine avatar is kind of cool.

[Wolf]

nelf banshee avatar, winged thors, the thor wow pet, the art book and the usb im using as a keychain are totally worth the whole purchase for me :)

[Nightblade]

Despite having never played a "real" RTS before, I decided to sink money into this game because I was bored; and decided 65 dollars (Post Tax) was weighing on my pocket too much.

After watching a few video tutorials, I became acquainted with the importance of hotkeys. Understandable. Being a user of the N52te, I opened up starcraft II, input my password, and load up the controls tab to find out that I can't. Oh good. Apparently that's cheating.

Despite this, I set the game's control scheme to "grid" and spent some time (too much time) getting around this using the n52te's software to remap and make a new profile; though I didn't have room to hotkey "Control Group Recall 1-0"). I tossed my classic G15 in the closet because it took too much much desk space. I really wish I had taken advantage of the buddy key system at this point but...  

I guess there's nothing else to do but just try to justify the money spent and just keep playing to see if I can get the hang of this.

[jakonovski]

I seem to have developed a fondness for Marine spam. 15 minutes of game, one hundred marines. And it can transition without pain because it really doesn't take much effort to rally marines near enemy base, 1a and then keep hitting stims.

[Rasix]

You're a bad person.

[Malakili]

I seem to have developed a fondness for Marine spam. 15 minutes of game, one hundred marines. And it can transition without pain because it really doesn't take much effort to rally marines near enemy base, 1a and then keep hitting stims.

Pray you never meet anyone who knows how to micro Templar.

[Rasix]

I seem to have developed a fondness for Marine spam. 15 minutes of game, one hundred marines. And it can transition without pain because it really doesn't take much effort to rally marines near enemy base, 1a and then keep hitting stims.

Pray you never meet anyone who knows how to micro Templar.

6 rax marine spam would probably get you into diamond.

[Samwise]

6 rax marine spam.

Did somebody say Deep Six?

[Malakili]

anyone who knows how to micro Templar.

 diamond.

Yep.